Saturday Miscellany!

[maxomai]

• AIPAC has formed a new group to lobby against the Iran nuclear deal, to the surprise of nobody who's paying attention to Middle East politics. Of course Israel hates this deal. They want the US to eliminate Iran as a regional player. Period.


• The Chattanooga shooter? Not ISIS. Now what?


• Microsoft again uses women's achievements to explain why they don't hire more women.


• If the Left wants the government to use its market power to influence the gun control debate, maybe they should propose that the military and Homeland Security adopt "smart guns" first, and work out the bugs, instead of forcing civilians to be the guinea pigs....


• Sabazius issued a statement about the relationship between the A∴ A∴ and OTO yesterday. This doesn't actually add new information to the continuing drama between various A∴ A∴ lineages, except insofar as it appears that Sb isn't sold on Daniel Gunther's claims, either. Stay tuned!


• I want to like the new Alice Glass track, "Stillbirth." I really do. But I think this sums up my feelings about it. Meanwhile, the other half of Crystal Castles recently put out this track, which I like a great deal. And no, the fact that one artist is apparently more moral than the other isn't relevant.

Comments

Not Israel's & S-Arabia's Mercenaries

[arkham4269.livejournal.com]

You know what would be nice? If we stopped letting Israel and Saudi Arabia trick us into being their muscle. Given how ISIL and Al Qaeda are funded via elements in Saudi Arabia and our alliance with Israel causes a lot of people some justified heartburn, helping these two countries out over Iran means helping the people who have done more than any two countries (except for maybe Pakistan) to help smear our standing among the Islamic world.

[paradoxosalpha.livejournal.com]

You seem to read Sabazius' statement a little differently than I do. To me, the most novel and interesting language was regarding "dues-collecting front groups," which implicitly makes two points:

1) OTO is not a front group for A.'.A.'.
2) Other dues-collecting organizations that claim to be fronts for A.'.A.'. are not.

These are both true, and well worth noting.

Lots to unpack here

[maxomai.livejournal.com]

I think that language escaped me because I wasn't aware that was an issue.

I know other persons are taking Sb's words as a policy statement that it is permissible to promote the Motta-Gunther AA at OTO events to the exclusion of other lineages. Quoting:

Well, there is one possible source of friction, that is true. The O.T.O. is the Gunther A∴A∴'s ally, making it okay, to promote it. Any member of the O.T.O. can be a member of any other group, but whether it be a Wiccan coven, a Rosicrucian order or another A∴A∴, promoting those groups in an O.T.O. setting would not be appropriate; but I think that is more a question of whether the members of any such groups respect the Order's rules or not.

Personally I think Sb's statement endorses nothing of the sort, but we'll have to see how things shake out.